`Big Men On Campus' At California School Face A String Of Rape Charges

LAKEWOOD, Calif. - They were pals, exceptional athletes and good looking. At Lakewood High School, a well-tended campus with a "Father Knows Best" freshness about it, they were the BMOC - big men on campus.

And, undeniably, they had a way with young women.

"We got all the girls," boasts Dana Belman, 20, a former varsity football player and linebacker who initiated a clique called Spur Posse three years ago. Then it consisted of 14 teenagers who played basketball after school and wore San Antonio Spurs caps. They enjoyed football games, parties and tabulating their sexual exploits.

"We'd be at a party and people would say, `Ah, there's the Spur Posse,' " Belman recalls. "Everybody looked up to us."

Not so any more. With the arrest Thursday of eight core members, who face a total of 17 felony counts of rape, unlawful intercourse and related charges, the Spur Posse has come under sudden and harsh scrutiny in this quiet suburban community 15 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

According to Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators, the gang victimized perhaps scores of young women, using persuasion and threats to score "points" in their long-running game of conquests. So far this month, seven girls - the youngest now 11 years old - have come forward with allegations about sexual encounters that occurred over a span of five months late last year, authorities say.

Members and friends of the Spur Posse defend themselves as a nonviolent group devoted to good times and dating. Sex? Sure, and there is plenty of it, they say. A number of members, including some who have graduated, spoke freely about the clique's moral codes and denied that girls were pressured into having sex.

Cumulative points are a source of friendly competition among members, says Dana Belman, whose younger brother Kris, 18, was the only adult arrested in Thursday's raid.

"If somebody has 60 points, somebody else wants to catch up," says Dana Belman, who is living at home after graduating from the high school. "But it ain't rape. You'd even count your own girlfriend as a point."

Belman says members liked to use the uniform numbers of sports stars to chronicle their encounters. "We'd come back from Vegas and say, `I'm 44 now. I'm Reggie Jackson,' " he says, placing his own total near 60. "That's how we did it."

Billy Shehan, 19, another original member of the Spurs, claims to be the top point scorer with 66 sexual encounters. But he never forced himself on a girl, he says. When asked about the subject, sheriff's investigator Blaydes points out that sex with minors is a felony, even if the girl consents. The seven alleged victims range in age from 11 to 16.